Friday, December 31, 2010

In the 1870 US Census for Salt River Township, Ralls County, MO is the following family:

Adams, Franklin 32 M W Farmhand $100 KY cannot read & write citizen

Margaret 27 F W keeping house IN

Susan 5 F W MO

Newton 3 M W MO

Clay 1 M W MO

Savattur, Sarah 66 W NC cannot write

Clay is my maternal grandfather Cash Clay ADAMS. The others are his family, but who is Sarah SAVATTUR? I have long suspected that she is Margaret’s mother and thus my great-great-grandmother. I have looked in vain in North Carolina for surnames anything like SAVATTUR. If she is Margaret’s mother, why is Margaret’s maiden name (or at least her surname at the time of her marriage) listed as MOOR or MOORE?

It turns out that Sarah is indeed my gg-grandmother but I still don’t know what her maiden name was. I don’t know how I missed them previously, but in the 1860 Census for Ralls County, MO was the following family as indexed by Ancestry.com:

Name: William Savatier

Age in 1860: 67

Birth Year: abt 1793

Birthplace: Pennsylvania

Home in 1860: Salt River, Ralls, Missouri

Gender: Male

Post Office: Lick Creek

Household Members: Name Age

William Savatier 67 PA

Sarah Savatier 53 NC

Margaret A Savatier 18 IN

The writing on this census page is so faint it is possible the record actually says “Margaret A Moore.” Margaret’s recorded age is also open to interpretation.

In the 1850 census William Savatier was living in Hendricks County, IN: